


Completion

by AishiteSubete



Series: VanInktober 2018 [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Inktober, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Obsession, Redemption, Soul-Searching, VanInktober2018
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-07-25 09:13:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AishiteSubete/pseuds/AishiteSubete
Summary: VanInktober 2018 prompts.Vanitas comes to grips with what he always thought he was supposed to be and what he is actually meant to be.





	1. Creation

_"Who...am I?"_

The boy questioned this over and over as shards of glass chipped under his feet like ice. The uneven, gaping chasm off to his left stood in stark contrast to the serene, sleeping face of the boy printed on the panels he strode across. _"I can't help but think I must be you,"_ he said, voice dripping with hints of resentment and bitterness. _"But I'm not."_

When the boy with black hair closed his eyes to blink, he was not on the stained glass station, but somewhere else entirely--and over him hovered a old man, gazing at him with unbridled interest. The man's dark skin and coloring contrasted greatly with his white beard and glowing, yellow eyes; he felt a pull in those eyes, as though the elder carried personality traits that were eerily similar to his own. "The boy proved useless," the man said to him when the haze cleared from his eyes, proceeding to pace around the room. "But somehow...made a striking recovery..." Those yellow eyes rounded on him again. "Vanitas..." he said, the voice managing to carry both respect and condescension in the same tonal inflections. "You are the darkness in his heart; it is only natural for you to be the one to coax him in a fight, to forget the X-blade!"

Though he spoke with such passion of his goals that Vanitas didn't consider questioning them, the raven began to think in the back of his head: _"That's right...I was only created because I am a part of you."_ When Vanitas dared to sleep, dared to dream...he found himself thinking only of the blonde-haired boy with the serene, sleeping face.

_Ventus._


	2. Purpose

Vanitas had always been certain of one thing: his purpose.

_My name is Vanitas,_ he often told himself. _I am the darkness culled from the heart of a Keyblade wielder named Ventus, and I must provoke him in order to forge the X-blade and start the Keyblade War anew!_ The words repeated like a mantra inside his skull when he found himself without much to do and nothing to truly occupy his thoughts--until, that was, until he found something that occupied him without his permission.

It was that first glimpse of shocking, ocean-blue hair from the newly-anointed Keyblade Master. He knew her name was Aqua and he watched from the shadows as she bested Terra in the Mark of Mastery exam.

He watched her with every slash of her Keyblade in his direction, every spell aimed at him with the intention to destroy.

He watched her as she jumped into the face of danger, time and time again, to protect the innocent and the ones she cared about.

He watched her as she slipped into darkness, falling face-first into the unfamiliar realm with a smile; it didn't matter what happened to her, as long as her friends were safe.

When Vanitas sat in the Chamber of Repose, staring at her lingering will when there was no one around to comment, he was certain he heard her voice calling out to him. Each time, he would shudder, and marvel at the woman whose purpose was far, far stronger than his own.


	3. Flight

It grew to a point where Vanitas could handle it no longer.

He found himself pacing the halls of the Castle that Never Was far too often to be considered healthy; the other vessels gave him suspicious looks when they passed by him. Perhaps he had spent too much time conversing with the lingering will, or perhaps he had visited Ventus's comatose body too many times.

"What am I going to do with you, _brother_ ," he sighed, sitting atop the high-backed throne Ventus slumped in. The view Vanitas had from that height in the room was one he had looked at time and time again; he hoped that, the more often he was around Ventus, the more he would understand the confusion that Aqua had sparked in him. "Fuck...what am I going to do with _myself_?" he asked in a much smaller voice as he took off his mask. In a single, fluid motion, he dove from the top of the throne and landed on his feet, facing Ventus fully.

Vanitas took in the appearance of the boy; still serene, still sleeping, still peaceful. Peaceful, despite the war that was beginning to rage around them all, despite the traumas and hells that their friends were going through.

_Their--?_

Vanitas balked at the thought, struggling to believe that in a split second he identified himself with Ventus, with the other Keyblade wielders. It didn't make sense to him at all. He felt a panic rise in his chest as he opened a portal of darkness, knowing entirely well that the only way he could feel calm was to be surrounded by darkness itself.

He closed his eyes, fell back into it, and fled the thoughts plaguing his mind.


	4. Flood

It hit him like a flood the moment he crossed into the Realm of Darkness. The wet sand he had been lying on was frozen into a thin sheet of ice, due to the strength of _her emotions._

Vanitas turned his head to look at Aqua, the Keyblade Master he had spent more time than he'd like to admit watching. She hovered above him dangerously, a look of fierce determination in her eyes, but there was something amiss. In her hands was not a Keyblade, as he had expected to see, but the aura of the blizzard magic she had cast upon him. "Wait!" he said as the fingers in her left hand started to twitch, as she began to raise her shoulder to launch another attack. "Wait...Aqua..."

Aqua's stance softened, as did the ice below him; he took it as an opportunity to sit upright and face her. "What happened to your Keyblade?" he asked in a hesitant, almost broken excuse for a sound. He was clearly taking in the form of Aqua's heaving shoulders as she breathed, the way the blue-white ice colors faded away to reveal fingertips the color of blood. His heart--if he even _had_ one--dropped at the sight.

Aqua was falling to the darkness.

The person he had watched from afar, admiring her drive, her ambition, her _purpose_ , was succumbing to the very darkness he was made of. Vanitas could easily remember a point in time when it made him happy--but it no longer could. Seeing the aggression latent in Aqua's eyes only caused his chest to seize, as though he was regretting not helping her, not showing her the light. "I left it," Aqua responded assuredly, a smugness in her voice that he could place only slightly. "It's gone. Lost in the stars, lost in the Realm of Light..." Aqua trailed off as she looked into the sky above her, as though she hoped to actually _see_ stars; her face simply continued to fall when she found none. "All that's left is me. But they'll know where to find me."

"I found you," Vanitas blurted, almost instinctively. He cursed at how alarmingly out-of-character it seemed for him. "What I mean is, I'll remind you how not to go crazy down here."

"How _not_ to go crazy?" Aqua shouted, almost in disbelief. "Well, you're a little too late for that--I feel like I'm already halfway there!" Her voice sounded like an exhausted shriek, a cry for help. Vanitas had no clue what to do with himself. But regardless, he couldn't watch the Master he held in such high esteem turn into a mindless being such as a Darkling; the thought made him shudder as he looked at her, collapsing to her knees on the ground.

"Just remember Terra," he said, the words tasting odd on the tip of his tongue. "...and Ventus." He watched her eyes stir, as though a small fire had lit underneath them. He knew that she was strong; all it would take would be the occasional reminder of what she cares about to make sure she stayed in control of herself.

"Terra...Ven..." she said softly, closing her eyes and letting a soft smile dust across her face. "It's been too long since I've seen them."

Vanitas almost wanted to say _"I know."_


	5. Mimic

Vanitas found that, outside of doing work that Xehanort had sent him off to complete, he had begun to spend his time in one of two places: the Land of Departure or the Realm of Darkness.

He couldn't bring himself to leave Aqua alone there. He had spent so much time admiring her resolve and her purpose that he couldn't stand to see her succumb to the darkness and lose that bright, shining heart of hers. He also couldn't stop himself from seeing Ventus as often as he could; he was drawn to the boy, for reasons that didn't feel like were of his own choosing.

Darkness incarnate stared Ventus down, face to face, yellow eyes boring into closed lids. If he was a part of Ventus, and just the thought of Ventus was enough to help Aqua maintain her sanity in the darkness, then perhaps he should start to act like him, or look like him, at least.

_It shouldn't be that difficult,_ Vanitas thought, focusing his mind to manipulate his dark visage into a replica of Ventus's own. He let the thought of the blonde's facial features be the only thing in his mind, and he felt his own face rearrange to match it. He understood why Ventus seemed to make her so happy--in a way, it had begun to feel like Ventus made him feel that way too.

When Vanitas faced his reflection in the mirror and saw blonde spikes in place of black ones, he felt truly accomplished. "This will make Aqua so happy," he said resolutely as he opened a portal of darkness.

If this was the only thing he could think of to make sure Aqua didn't lose her heart, he would do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My attempt to keep up with this month's VanInktober prompts has been futile, seeing as how life likes to get in the way. But all 31 prompts will be up by Halloween.


	6. Lost

Vanitas stepped out excitedly into the place in darkness that he knew Aqua would be, and was terrified when he realized she wasn't there this time.

_No..._ he thought, almost entirely mortified, as he looked into the haze of darkness that faced the sea. _She couldn't have...she was just fine yesterday..._

But time didn't pass the same in the Realm of Darkness, and Vaintas pondered that as he ran, face first, into the dark, his Keyblade drawn. To Aqua, the single day in between his last visit could have felt like an eternity to her; logically, it almost was. All things aside, he could still feel the light of her heart somewhere, somewhere close.

When he ran further back into the realm, he saw her; Aqua stood in front of the Darksides, listlessly dodging their attacks and refraining from providing a countermove. She moved in a way that was almost as though she was getting her daily dose of exercise; when she looked back to Vanitas, her face went through an odd chain of emotions.

"Ventus..." she questioned, looking upon Vanitas's mimicry of her friend with absolute horror. "You're...no...don't tell me Xehanort got you too?" Tears began to fall down her face on the last few words as she staggered closer to Vanitas, hands outstretched. "No...no..."

Vanitas stared wide-eyed at her, not entirely sure what about his appearance that she was reacting so poorly to. He made himself look like a carbon copy of the blonde boy, so how could she be upset to see him? What is it she was so frightened by?

When Vanitas looked down at her fingertips, which were starting to stain red, he realized there was something about his appearance he was never really able to change.

His piercing, yellow eyes.


End file.
